Two Forsyth County men entered life-saving guilty pleas yesterday. Kohumna Hoyle, 34, was sentenced to life without parole in the death of his son, Raynell. Hoyle’s bipolar illness may have contributed to the child’s death. Daniel Learmond Hayes, 21, will spend the rest of his life in prison for the murder of a cab driver. Hayes’s life was saved in large part by his victim’s children, who told prosecutors to be merciful because they didn’t want Hayes’s family to have to endure the pain of his execution.

Elsewhere

Alabama plans to pay a Massachusetts doctor $400 an hour to analyze the combination of drugs the state uses to kill people. OK, but don’t complain about the cost of the defense’s expert.

Mississippi plans to retry Kennedy Brewer for rape and murder, even though the DNA shows he didn’t do it. Brewer was sentenced to death and incarcerated for 15 years before DNA proved his innocence. Meanwhile, the state has not attempted to find the real killer. The district attorney claims that he did not run the DNA through the state database because no such registry exists, but the assistant director of the crime lab says that the database has been in operation for years.

In Ohio, Romell Broom has been granted a stay of execution. Broom joins several other inmates whose executions are on hold while courts determine the constitutionality of the state’s lethal injection protocol.

You can fight multiple sclerosis and help spread the word about the poor medical care given to an MS-sufferer on Tennessee‘s death row at the same time. Click here to sponsor a rider who is raising money in the name of Paul House.

Tonight on HDNet, Dan Rather will examine the cases of Ruben Cantu and Carlos de Luna, asking whether Texas executed innocent men. For folks who get the channel, the show will air at 8 and 11 PM EST. (c/o Abolish)